Tone activated alert receivers are well known and are regularly used by emergency agencies including fire, police, ambulance, and rescue services. The National Weather Service (NWS) transmits an alert signal to activate commonly available weather alert receivers to warn of impending severe and potentially life threatening weather such as tornadoes, thunderstorms, flash floods, blizzards and others. Known receivers can be set to issue a siren, flash a warning light, and/or announce the voice weather alert message in response to receiving and decoding an alert signal.
The National Weather Service (NWS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as other emergency agencies, broadcasts a digital code as a header preceding each alert message. This digital header usually contains the type of warning, the effective time and expiration time of the warning and the areas effected.
Such an alert message is commonly referred to as a Mass News Disseminator. An example of such a Mass News Disseminator is as follows:
RDUTORMHX PA1 TTAA00 MKHX 061730 PA1 NCC013-147-061815-
The text "NCC013-147" represents the North Carolina county codes for Pitt and Beaufort Counties, i.e., the warned area. Further, each transmission includes a CAP code which distinguishes between various weather phenomena announced by the NWS. For example, a tornado receives a different CAP code than a severe weather warning.
Although the type of the warning can be obtained through decoding the header, it has been found that most of the effected public doesn't feel a compelling need for all of the information contained in the alert message, or even all the information contained in just the header. What the public wants is an alert of an impending severe weather condition, such as a tornado or severe thunderstorm, that is specifically directed to them, in sufficient time to take evasive action.
Such warnings are often extremely time critical. Warnings must automatically be received by the ultimate end user, preferably on a dedicated system that will not be interfered with by other communications channels.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,781,852 to Gropper describes a capable system which provides an alert receiver interface. The receiver automatically detects the issuance of an emergency message broadcast on a radio channel, or on another communication system. The system records that alert message into the receiver with an audible day and time stamp for later playback. The system also provides an interface between the alert receiver and other communications systems, including paging system, whereby an alert message, or an alarm tone, is automatically relayed and repeated on the other communication system. The system also teaches selectively activating another communication system for only those alert messages of specific concern to users of the other communications system. In that mode, the alert receiver interface can be set by a user for specific needs such as to detect a fire company's alert signal on a public service radio channel and then go through the recording, day, and time stamp and playback sequences.
While the system described in the '852 patent is a very capable system, recent tragedies, such as that in Oklahoma City, indicate that a broadly available alert warning system is still badly needed. Such a system should be dedicated to a specific need, without the requirement of being selected by a user. Further, the system should eliminate the mystery of the known complex systems, and be readily acceptable in the market.
Sales figures show that consumers today readily accept pagers and smoke detectors. Consequently, an alert warning system preferably should extend the already widely accepted pager and smoke detector systems to provide an audible early warning of a tornado. Further, such a system should be specifically directed to only those areas that will be affected by the tornado or severe weather so that if an alert is received, the user knows to immediately take action.
In my previous application, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/332,915, filed Jun. 14, 1999, warning areas were based on county lines, or portions of counties. While this system has proved very effective, there are many large and or populous counties in which many people would receive a warning signal in the previous system which did not immediately or directly effect them. This recognition lead to the present invention, in which warning areas are based on a grid system of latitude and longitude.